House rules are house rules . . It's your house and they MUST be your rules. Lay that down straight and firm, don't bend on it one inch.

With that basis - and only with that basis - you can be as sympathetic and understanding as possible.

BTW - to counter some broad generalisations above - of our various exchange persons the best and easiest of the lot was a Scandanavian. And our summer tour of Germany was staying with/visiting past exchange persons (plus my wife's "penfriend" of about 35 years standing . . )

And having had some experience of the organising of such programmes, I have to say that IT APPEARS that your local AFS (whatever that is - I've no idea) did a dreadful job with the placement of the Norwegian boy. Just don't feel bad about how that turned out!

G.